Recently, due to vast increases in computer speed and communication transmission rates, the need for rapid printing and ink image forming devices has increased. To meet the need, ink drop printers have been designed with one or a group of ink guns. Typically, in present systems, ink leaves the guns at cyclically varying velocities to form droplets from a stream of ink. The ink droplets are given an electric charge at their point of formation by electric fields at that point. Then each droplet is guided by other electric fields to strike paper at a predetermined point or to not strike the paper at all. The need to produce an electric field at the point of formation for each droplet stream dictates a minimum spacing between streams. Also, the ink must be electrically conducting and not by ionic conduction, unless some means is provided to remove an excess of ions of one type produced by electrifying the droplets. If the ink is ionic then a deadly gas or liquid might evolve at either the ink source or the paper depending on what ionic salt is used.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a line of or range of ink printers which can be electronically-controlled and can safely use an ionically-conducting ink. It is a further object to provide an ink printer which has no need to charge droplets of ink, but which can control separate closely-spaced streams of ink electronically. It is a further object to provide separate stream controls which can be manufactured using batch techniques. It is a still further object to provide a line of printers varying in speed, sophistication, and cost. It is a still further object to provide generalized means, available for use not confined only to the printers otherwise covered in this invention, to prevent ink clogging due to precipitation and to simulate a closer spacing between ink jets. These and other objects of this invention will become apparent upon reading the remainder of this disclosure.